Disney’s NextGen Queues – The Pros and Cons

The idea of having hands-on activities in a Disney queue is a new idea proving to be quite popular. It serves to keep Guests, especially children, entertained during long waits. It simply makes the wait seem shorter. Disney’s NextGen queues also help to make Guests feel important. Disney likes to make their visitors feel like they matter, because they do! Guests get to be in control, and they love it. It makes them feel like they are a part of the story.

The NextGen queue has become a popular enhancement to several Disney attractions, including:

• Test Track – Guests design their own SimCar and then see how it compares to the Test Track vehicle.
• Soarin’ – Games on large screens allow Guests to use their bodies to compete in groups with one another as flying birds and beachballs.
• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh – Guests of all ages can enjoy picking “kerits” and writing their name in the “hunny” wall.
• Haunted Mansion – A murder mystery, the Decomposing Composer’s tomb, moving books, a singing captain, and a riddle book that “writes” itself are just some of the awesome things that Guests experience as they wait in line.
• Space Mountain – Large screens and dashboard controls allow Guests to man spacecraft and fire at objects for points.
• Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid – Guests can help sea crabs sort various treasures by pointing to them. The technology here is pretty cool.
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – The new storyline includes mining tycoon Barnabas T. Bullion, aka Imagineer Tony Baxter, who has installed some new boxes of explosives that Guests can “detonate” using crank wheels and pull bars.
• Dumbo – Guests receive a pager and can play in the circus arena until their pager beeps, which lessens the wait time and gives a less structured feel.

Fantastic theming with a hands-on approach makes these new queues the talk of the Disney-town. But are Guests really getting the right message?

For example, one of the problems of Space Mountain’s interactive queues is that one round of game often exceeds the length of time that a Guest is standing in that particular spot in line. The line starts moving; Guests want to finish their game, but others behind them are pushing (often with their icy stares, sometimes with their bodies) to keep the line moving. When this first opened, Cast Members were forced to put empty rockets through because people were holding up the line! A “disable” option actually had to be installed to shut off the games when necessary to keep the line moving.

Disney’s NextGen queues tend to create a rushed experience when the people behind in line are ready to move along (or ready to have their turn).

This indirectly contradicts the idea of MagicBands and the way Disney wants you to plan your day. The recommended FastPass+ for attractions and advanced dining reservations for popular table service restaurants create a streamlined, structured experience for the average Guest. The rigidity of needing to schedule your actions is then randomly undone when the Guests are allowed to hold up the lines through game-playing and (the time-consuming) picture-taking.

For example, everybody wants his or her photo taken with Mr. Potato Head, the boardwalk barker himself. Heck, he sometimes even talks directly to Guests! Although the line moves rather slowly at Toy Story Midway Mania, it can move even slower when every Guest stops to watch this sarcastic spud at work.

One of the confusing design aspects of this queue is the wider area near Mr. Potato Head. Is it to allow for more Guests to see him up close? Maybe to get a better picture-taking angle? Or is it to bypass people in line who would rather stay and take a picture of him with each one of their eight children?

If you think about any of these options, they cancel each other out. If you try any of these options, Guests will get annoyed, especially when they see the gap between you and the person in front of you slowly getting larger and larger. It begins a chain reaction. Once one person stops to get a photo with Potato Head, then the next family wants to, and so on and so forth.

Cast Members who work at Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin have a similar issue with the Buzz audio-animatronic. While families are holding up others by taking a dozen photos, right around the corner at the load area, CMs are forced to send through several empty ride vehicles in a row during the attraction’s hour-long wait. Buzz in particular has a direct impact on the Operational Hourly Ride Capacity.

Interactive queues and their elements, although extremely entertaining, can create issues with their go-at-your-own-pace attitude. One area where this attitude does work is Dumbo. Having a pager and a chance to not stand in a line and still let children stay occupied is fantastic. But according to some parents, their children would rather stay and play than get on the ride itself. Is this the right option if children would rather stay on the playground than ride the attraction?

Although wonderfully fun and entertaining, Disney’s NextGen elements would benefit the best from less crowds. Several years ago during slow seasons, Guests could walk through a queue at their own leisure without feeling like they’re moving through an assembly line. Nowadays, the slow seasons are bringing in more Guests with free dining and discounted room rates.

But then again, if there aren’t crowds, who’d need the interactive queues anyway?